Google says its carbon footprint is now zero(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54141899
329 comments
This is like rich countries moving factories to third-world countries where industry emits more CO2. They pretend to be responsible for less and less greenhouse gases even though they consume more physical goods, with larger carbon footprint. Worst, they feel fine flying and buying SUV because their not that dirty compared to people in undeveloped countries whose carbon footprint keeps increasing.
I'm always suspicious about carbon offsets. From what I've seen buying flights for example, the price seems surprisingly low. Either being carbon neutral is not as economy-killing as some say, or the true price is much higher. Does anyone have more expertise on this?
This is quite impressive, but it is also somewhat meaningless. I suppose I'd draw an analogy to a cake shop boasting that it had achieved net-no industrial accidents over its existence - a great record, but also not really a particular stretch to achieve.
Carbon emissions aren't about servers. They are about, in order of priority:
* How do we feed people cheaply without fossil fuels (both as fertiliser & for crop transport)?
* How do we extract minerals cheaply (especially aluminium) without fossil fuels?
* How do we maintain the cheap logistics network that gets us stuff without fossil fuels?
The first two are non-negotiable, the 3rd is quite important. If those 3 problems were solved then fossil fuels would just go away quietly. Google isn't involved in any of those things; it is part of the 'these carbon emissions are incidental' category of emissions that we can reasonably get rid of.
But, again, good on them for setting clear goals and achieving them.
Carbon emissions aren't about servers. They are about, in order of priority:
* How do we feed people cheaply without fossil fuels (both as fertiliser & for crop transport)?
* How do we extract minerals cheaply (especially aluminium) without fossil fuels?
* How do we maintain the cheap logistics network that gets us stuff without fossil fuels?
The first two are non-negotiable, the 3rd is quite important. If those 3 problems were solved then fossil fuels would just go away quietly. Google isn't involved in any of those things; it is part of the 'these carbon emissions are incidental' category of emissions that we can reasonably get rid of.
But, again, good on them for setting clear goals and achieving them.
Google blog article: https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/our-...
This has been very commendable from Google, since they started working towards it.
Sure, there have been environmental impact from this as others have pointed out, but since they were one of the earliest movers on these things, we can expect them to run into issues which hopefully they will work towards fixing for everyone. Also, we do need to compare the impact with the impact of what it replaces to keep things in perspective.
I am glad that more companies have joined them on this, since it looks like it will be very hard to convince some governments to course correct on these issues.
Sure, there have been environmental impact from this as others have pointed out, but since they were one of the earliest movers on these things, we can expect them to run into issues which hopefully they will work towards fixing for everyone. Also, we do need to compare the impact with the impact of what it replaces to keep things in perspective.
I am glad that more companies have joined them on this, since it looks like it will be very hard to convince some governments to course correct on these issues.
This story is in reaction to the Amazon TV ad campaign that just launched pledging that Amazon will be carbon-neutral by 2040 and they're "not sure how we'll get there, but we will."
Obviously two tech companies with drastically different carbon footprints, considering Google doesn't own a global multimodal logistics fleet.
Obviously two tech companies with drastically different carbon footprints, considering Google doesn't own a global multimodal logistics fleet.
Offsets are helpful, but are not the solution. At best, they're a stepping stone.
The only sustainable solution is reduction in usage. I'm not sure how feasible that is, or how to achieve it necessarily, but that's the only sustainable basis to proceed on.
The only sustainable solution is reduction in usage. I'm not sure how feasible that is, or how to achieve it necessarily, but that's the only sustainable basis to proceed on.
> But the claim to have "offset" all of Google's historical carbon "debt" needs scrutiny.
> The company tells me its offsets so far have focused mainly on capturing natural gas where it's escaping from pig farms and landfill sites. But arguably governments should be ensuring this happens anyway.
Go figure.
> The company tells me its offsets so far have focused mainly on capturing natural gas where it's escaping from pig farms and landfill sites. But arguably governments should be ensuring this happens anyway.
Go figure.
This article misses the elephant in the room: The emissions created by the use of a companies product.
Google, like all large cloud providers, has lately heavily invested in collaborations with the oil industry: https://gizmodo.com/how-google-microsoft-and-big-tech-are-au...
Their whole emission calculation just ignores that factor.
Google, like all large cloud providers, has lately heavily invested in collaborations with the oil industry: https://gizmodo.com/how-google-microsoft-and-big-tech-are-au...
Their whole emission calculation just ignores that factor.
But at what cost? Alphabet pressures local governments to let them drain aquifers to cool their machines¹, and powers them using vast swaths of bulldozed former habitats of endangered desert tortoises and focused beams of light that literally burn alive thousands of birds:
Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.
Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one “streamer” every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version.².
1: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/google-s-controversial-g...
2: https://www.sbsun.com/2014/08/18/emerging-solar-plants-in-mo...
"Once built, U.S. government biologists found the plant's superheated mirrors were killing birds. In April, biologists working for the state estimated that 3,500 birds died at Ivanpah in the span of a year, many of them burned alive while flying through a part of the solar installment where air temperatures can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit." — https://www.wsj.com/articles/high-tech-solar-projects-fail-t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility#B...
Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.
Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one “streamer” every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version.².
1: https://www.postandcourier.com/news/google-s-controversial-g...
2: https://www.sbsun.com/2014/08/18/emerging-solar-plants-in-mo...
"Once built, U.S. government biologists found the plant's superheated mirrors were killing birds. In April, biologists working for the state estimated that 3,500 birds died at Ivanpah in the span of a year, many of them burned alive while flying through a part of the solar installment where air temperatures can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit." — https://www.wsj.com/articles/high-tech-solar-projects-fail-t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility#B...
I'd like to know more, if they do more than just their electricity consumption.
Do they include in their carbon footprint their whole energy consumption (from heating to fuel for company cars)?
Do they include other resource consumption from wares and goods, including the production of all the servers they use?
Do they include in their carbon footprint their whole energy consumption (from heating to fuel for company cars)?
Do they include other resource consumption from wares and goods, including the production of all the servers they use?
Microsoft is the winner in this PR battle:
"When it comes to carbon, neutrality is not enough," said Microsoft president Brad Smith.
Fucking right.
But how are you going to reverse it? It has never been done. The technology doesn't exist, except as ideas or sometimes prototypes. It doesn't scale.
With greenhouse emissions you can't put the genie back into the bottle. It took a very green earth with no industry on it billions of years to lock up the carbon that we've released over the last few centuries. If all this talk of carbon offset was worth anything, atmospheric CO2 and methane would be reducing. It's not. It's still accelerating. Putting money into carbon offset programs doesn't suck your flight's CO2 out of the atmosphere, or somehow remove the methane produced by the herd of cows that produced every steak you've ever eaten. It's not any different to paying the church to absolve you of sin. One could argue that the Catholic church did some good with the money (maybe?) but the main effect of buying indulgences is that you feel better about your sins. Californians still watered their lands during droughts because they felt that they somehow earned the right: "I paid for that water"
Sorry. I'm just entirely pessimistic about this. As a kid I used to think that people were so stupid back in the 1600s-1800s, for causing extinctions left and right. The unfortunate Dodo, Tasmanian Tiger, Great Auk, Passenger pigeon. The generations that inhabited earth within our living memory have done far worse. We are now seeing some of the dreaded "feedback loops" we were warned about: Methane release from melting ice, decreased summer ice coverage reducing reflected solar energy.
Mass extinctions will be the new normal. We'll start to see more of those weird "hundred of thousands of birds mysteriously dead" posts.
The only thing that made a dent in our emissions was covid-19. I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't part of some "benevolent" 12 Monkeys plot. (Kidding! That was humans being fucking stoooooopid too)
Fucking right.
But how are you going to reverse it? It has never been done. The technology doesn't exist, except as ideas or sometimes prototypes. It doesn't scale.
With greenhouse emissions you can't put the genie back into the bottle. It took a very green earth with no industry on it billions of years to lock up the carbon that we've released over the last few centuries. If all this talk of carbon offset was worth anything, atmospheric CO2 and methane would be reducing. It's not. It's still accelerating. Putting money into carbon offset programs doesn't suck your flight's CO2 out of the atmosphere, or somehow remove the methane produced by the herd of cows that produced every steak you've ever eaten. It's not any different to paying the church to absolve you of sin. One could argue that the Catholic church did some good with the money (maybe?) but the main effect of buying indulgences is that you feel better about your sins. Californians still watered their lands during droughts because they felt that they somehow earned the right: "I paid for that water"
Sorry. I'm just entirely pessimistic about this. As a kid I used to think that people were so stupid back in the 1600s-1800s, for causing extinctions left and right. The unfortunate Dodo, Tasmanian Tiger, Great Auk, Passenger pigeon. The generations that inhabited earth within our living memory have done far worse. We are now seeing some of the dreaded "feedback loops" we were warned about: Methane release from melting ice, decreased summer ice coverage reducing reflected solar energy.
Mass extinctions will be the new normal. We'll start to see more of those weird "hundred of thousands of birds mysteriously dead" posts.
The only thing that made a dent in our emissions was covid-19. I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't part of some "benevolent" 12 Monkeys plot. (Kidding! That was humans being fucking stoooooopid too)
The "graying out comments I don't like" effect on HN is getting really bad lately.
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Meanwhile I'm also completely CO2 neutral with my ICE car: [0] why is this even a problem? for 1ct per liter we are CO2 neutral, Google and everybody is doing it. And yet...
[0] https://nltimes.nl/2019/04/08/shell-charge-customers-extra-c...
[0] https://nltimes.nl/2019/04/08/shell-charge-customers-extra-c...
Carbon "offsets" give a nice, reassuring feeling. But what actually counts for the planet is actual, raw emissions, how much of the dirty stuff you're throwing out. "Emitting than planting some trees that will hopefully fix back the carbon in 40 years" isn't the same at all as "not emitting".
Sorry, but this is greenwashing.
Sorry, but this is greenwashing.
I don't understand how that can be possible. Is Google planting trees to remove carbon from the air ?
I mean there are hundreds of google employees who take the plane everyday and therefore emit carbon, how this carbon emission is removed ?
I mean there are hundreds of google employees who take the plane everyday and therefore emit carbon, how this carbon emission is removed ?
I wish we would subside biochar in agriculture the same way we did ethanol. Or include it in carbon trading. Or both. And fertilise the open ocean deserts with iron while we're at it.
I kinda feel like it's try anything time.
I kinda feel like it's try anything time.
Google is now into pig farming to reduce CO2 emissions?
"The company tells me its offsets so far have focused mainly on capturing natural gas where it's escaping from pig farms and landfill sites."
"The company tells me its offsets so far have focused mainly on capturing natural gas where it's escaping from pig farms and landfill sites."
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Just thinking out loud, but does it count if I've just bought loads of Carbon credits?
Doesn’t “all-time cumulated carbon footprint” make a bit more sense?
Do they include carbon cost of the entire supply chain of their servers?
Even the employees don't produce carbon by driving non-tesla cars to work
How about the carbon footprint of their users while using their services?
GREENWASHING.
Here's a wild, crazy, dangerous idea for discussion: how about we start curtailing globalism, and encourage people to live less carbon intensive lives by building economies based around what's available nearby?
Eg do you count secondary services your employees use, like food services or emissions from their commute? Do you count partner services, like shipping providers for physical product? These, along with your direct emissions, are categorized into three "scopes" of emissions. Do you include purchased offsets against emissions, and at what rate? This is what most companies (including MS, since 2012) use to be "carbon neutral". Companies are selective about which scopes they include, and they pay for the total in offsets.
The point of the blog lost is to be clear (and holier-than-thou) about MS's announced goal: to remove more carbon than they produce in all three scopes each year by 2030 ("net negative"), and to remove all the carbon Microsoft has ever produced in all three scopes from the atmosphere by 2050. Actual carbon removal, not offsets.
I have not read this article so I have no idea what google is or isn't claiming here. But I learned a lot from the MS blog post so I thought I'd share.
[1] https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/01/16/microsoft-will-b...