Opinion
Red Deer gets $49.2 million to design and expand wastewater treatment plant for 2026. Could we look at options?
The province of Alberta is giving the city of Red Deer $49.2 million to upgrade their wastewater treatment plant. To handle the wastewater created throughout the region.
This is a multi-year multi-faceted project that will culminate in treating 72,000 cubic metres of waste daily in 2026. That is a lot of water being pumped into the river in one spot.
There will be years in the planning and designing stage before construction begins. Is there any room in that schedule to contemplate a small turbine or two to produce electricity? Is it at all possible to ask experts if it is possible to divert some of that water to run a hydro-electric turbine to produce electricity to some extent, possibly enough to run a pump or a few lights?
Turbines are about 8 times more efficient now than they were a few years ago, how efficient could they be in 7 years?
Portland installed turbines in their water pipes to produce electricity, so I am sure they asked the experts, got a feasibility study, studied the cost/benefit analysis before proceeding.
Will Red Deer even consider asking the experts? No, they asked once, years ago, it wasn’t feasible then so it is not feasible now, no matter how far they have come in efficiencies and costs. End of story. How sad.
I just thought the city could look at future cost savings, perhaps reduce their reliance on non-renewable resources, and look at possible options to get the greatest return on this generous gift from the province. That may be too much to ask.
But I am asking. What do you say?
Censorship Industrial Complex
UNESCO’s New Mission: Train Influencers About Combatting Online “Misinformation”
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is now incorporating teaching influencers how to “fact check” into its activities.
UNESCO claims that influencers have become “primary sources of news and cultural information” around the world – which prompted it to carry out a survey into how these online personalities verify the “news” they present.
Citizens in UN member-countries may or may not be happy that this is how their taxpayer money funding the world organization is being spent these days. But UNESCO is not only conducting surveys; it is also developing a training course for said influencers (which are also interchangeably referred to as content creators in press releases).
It’s meant to teach them not only to “report misinformation, disinformation and hate speech” but also to collaborate with legacy media and these outlets’ journalists, in order to “amplify fact-based information.”
The survey, “Behind the screens,” was done together with researchers from the US Bowling Green State University. 500 influencers from 45 countries took part, and the key findings, UNESCO said, are that 63 percent of them “lack rigorous and systematic fact-checking protocols” – but also, that 73% said they “want to be trained.”
This UN agency also frames the results as showing that respondents are “struggling” with disinformation and hate speech and are “calling for more training.”
UNESCO is justifying its effort to teach influencers to “rigorously” check facts by referring to its media and information literacy mandate. The report laments that mainstream media has become “only the third most common source (36.9%) for content creators, after their own experience and their own research and interviews.”
It would seem content creators/influencers are driven by common sense, but UNESCO wants them to forge closer ties with journalists (specifically those from legacy, i.e., traditional media – UNESCO appears very eager to stress that multiple times.)
Related: United Nations Development Program Urges Governments to Push Digital ID
Under the guise of concern, the agency also essentially warns creators/influencers that they should be better aware of regulations and “international standards” that pertain to digital media – in order to avoid “legal uncertainty” that exposes them to “prosecution and conviction in some countries.”
And now, UNESCO and US-based Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas have launched a one-month course which is currently involving 9,000 people from 160 countries. The goal is to train them to “address disinformation and hate speech and provide them with a solid grounding in global human rights standards.”
The initiative looks like an attempt to get “traditional” journalists to influence the influencers, and try to prop up their outlets, that are experiencing an erosion in trust among their audiences.
If you’re tired of censorship and surveillance, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.
By Cindy Harper
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The newly appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has made it clear that dismantling the “censorship cartel” is his primary goal. His plan to address what he perceives as rampant censorship on social media platforms and beyond was detailed during a recent interview on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“Combating tech censorship is going to be one of the top priorities for me. We need to restore Americans’ right to free speech,” Carr emphasized. He discussed the role of major tech companies like Facebook in this alleged cartel, accusing them of collaborating with advertisers and government officials to curtail the free speech rights of the public. “You mentioned Facebook and other companies. They’ve been part of a censorship cartel that have worked with advertisers. They’ve worked with government officials to censor the free speech rights of everyday Americans, and that’s got to end because censorship isn’t just about stopping work. It’s about stopping ideas.” Watch the video clip here. Carr continued, highlighting the stifling effect of censorship on innovation and prosperity. “America is a country of founders, of people that have pushed boundaries, pushed frontiers. They’ve innovated and, when you silence speech, you silence ideas, and we unleash America’s prosperity again. That’s why you feel this vibe shifting in the country where people know President Trump is about to lead another great American comeback, because this wet blanket of government control is going away, and our economy is going to flourish again.” The appointment of Carr comes at a time when many have accused Big Tech firms of bias and suppression of certain voices. This was evident when Twitter notoriously suppressed a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop just before Elon Musk took over the company, and other platforms, including Facebook, faced backlash for limiting information labeled as misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently expressed regrets over yielding to the Biden-Harris administration’s demands to censor specific content. If you’re tired of censorship and surveillance, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.
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