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.
Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
41–50 of 335 posts
Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
#42This 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 tra…
a cake shop boasting that it had achieved net-no industrial accidents over its existence I'm curious about how you offset an accident to get back down to net no accidents. Can you explain?
You contribute funds to a company that works on safety initiatives, then claim you prevented an accident that offsets the one you had.
Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because so few people are interested in offsets right now, there's a huge amount of "low-hanging fruit" options for cheap things humanity can do to offset carbon emissions. For example, look at some of the projects here: https://www.goldstandard.org/take-action/offset-your-emissio... Many of them just involve getting very poor people access to clean water (so they don't have to burn hydrocarbons to boil the water) or…
> Because so few people are interested in offsets right now, there's a huge amount of "low-hanging fruit" options for cheap things humanity can do to offset carbon emissions. Yeah, that the trick. To put it boldly: What they offer is not sustainable. This means that these green initiatives hide the real price of CO2 or at least give a very wrong impression.
That statement is too bold -- the price of a CO2 offset is not a constant. As the easy methods become exhausted, we'll have to move to more expensive methods, yes. But currently there's still an absolute glut of fairly-cheap CO2 reduction methods that just aren't being done, or wouldn't be done without the offset pricing, so it's still a net benefit to do them.
Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
#44>"We'll do things like pairing wind and solar power sources together and increasing our use of battery storage," he said.
Is Google accounting for the environmental destruction that goes into making those solar panels.
Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
#45How about the carbon footprint of their users while using their services?
People seems to be upset because they misinterpreted an an ambiguous statement.
Google should include the cost of user computers running JavaScript.
Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
#46This 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 don't get the analogy - could you explain more?
Disc: Googler.
Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
#47I'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?
Who told you going carbon neutral was economy killing? And if it is, why are all the world's governments commited to doing it?
I think you can probably trace that information source back to someone who makes their money pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
#48This 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 tra…
Very well said.
I wonder (actually I really dont - it is clear that it doesnt) if 0 emission include also creation of silicon resin, PCBs, wiring, electricity,... I am not saying it is nothing, but it is "a tad" spitting into the sea.
The major footprint comes from heavy industry that is creating the materials so google can actually operate and if I would be sarcastic - they actually create a greater need for materials where its production produce large amount of emissions.
I would even claim, that they would do far more if they would stop showing ads. The electricity footprint on world wide scale must be enormous.
I can claim 0 emission for myself except from (sorry, I just had to say it :D), farting and breathing. But once I start to count in how my food was produced, how the goods I am using were produced etc. this is just not true. Anyway as a decades long vegetarian and strictly driven on public transport or bicycle I do my best here.
This is just publicity stunt from google and it doesn't really mean anything.
But looks like it worked. BBC cached it and is doing an article about it.
Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
#49This 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 tra…
a cake shop boasting that it had achieved net-no industrial accidents over its existence I'm curious about how you offset an accident to get back down to net no accidents. Can you explain?
You buy casualty offset from licensed companies.
Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero
#50This 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.
Correct me if I am wrong, but from the blog post, Google is claiming that they have been carbon neutral from 2007. They just took care of offsetting the emissions before 2007. The 2030 aim is to be carbon free. Not sure how it compares to Amazon.
disc: Googler.