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Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#221

Post by dheera »

i_miss_unix wrote: post #188
dheera wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems with the offset approach is it's not that repeatable. Only a certain number of companies can buy carbon offsets before there aren't really any more offsets to buy, and we have to start actually reducing the carbon to begin with. Separately, one of the things that gets to me with companies like Google claiming a zero carbon footprint is that if you look at its corporate headquarters, it's mostly pa…

Don't they basically have a massive fleet of buses that cart in all the kids to work who cannot afford to live within 10 miles of the place? Are those buses natural gas?

Oh, sure, they exist, but why are there still parking lots almost full of cars?

And also, 10 miles is a really long distance. Most people consider anything more than 1 mile un-walkable for a commute, so what about all the people between 1 to 10 miles?

And what about visitors, contractors, interviewees, partner company employees, and everyone else who can't take the bus? Why aren't the buses a part of the local transit agency, and why does the local transit agency not even bother running frequent route anywhere near Google, Apple, Facebook, et al.? Why aren't there air-conditioned express Wi-Fi VTA buses, or better yet, fast (>80mph) electric trains, plying up and down 101 and 280 serving all the tech companies in one go, stopping at each HQ, considering they are almost all right next to either highway? That would be a low-carbon world.

Also, one of the inherent problems with employee shuttles instead is that they compete with public transit, and also reduce the flexibility for employees to go to other places after work. I've known many employees regularly go to FLAG companies via the shuttle but drive to work on days they have dinner appointments with friends. To a great degree this also propagates the cycle where public transit becomes progressively worse in coverage and maintainence, and progressively more for low-income individuals only.

Compare to many other public-transit-first countries which have trains/buses that are actually fast, clean, nice, comfortable, and not worse than taking a company shuttle + you have the flexibility to go whenever you want, as well as wherever you want after work.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#222

Post by namdnay »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #186
namdnay wrote: post #14

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?

The issue is that this price doesn't scale. Let's say that the current price of an offset is $5/ton-of-co2. Let's say that presently all offsets are being put toward replacing inefficient wood-burning stoves in third-world countries with much more efficient electric stoves, because it's the cheapest way to reduce carbon emissions. Right now, only a very small amount of offsets are being purchased (relatively little c…

Ahhhh I thought the offsets were "standalone positives" , like planting trees. Indeed if an offset can be helping others reduce, it's definitely a lower cost (and less scalability, as you point out)

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#223

Post by thu2111 »

bluGill wrote: post #191
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you count secondary services your employees use No, you don't. If you pull the food service thread, you can go through the food wholesalers to farmers, then to John Deere, then to steel plants, then to miners, then to hard hats and eventually you'll end up in China where the game will be declared lost.

It is commonly done. I work for John deere and we have a team dedicated to making sure that our products don't use conflict minerals, which if I understand correctly means mined with slave labor. I know for a fact that we have all of our suppliers traced 6 levels deep just to ensure that the whole chain is okay. We can put whatever want on the list, though we sometimes run into problems because we are too small to ge…

That's not what conflict minerals means. That term means what it says: that the minerals come from a (civil) war zone where people are killing each other over the right to extract them. That extraction may well also include slavery in some places, but it's not exactly the same thing.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#224

Post by Spivak »

chrisseaton wrote: post #151
na85 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such vehicle exists. All vehicles require carbon-intensive processes in their manufacturing.

Isn't that better than petrol or diesel cars?

The short answer is yes, the long answer is "it depends on your local electricity generation but probably still yes." There are some places in the world where gas wins out because they burn coal to produce electricity but it's rare.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#225

Post by irrational »

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #109

There's a really good explanation of different loopholes in calculating carbon emissions in the Microsoft carbon target announcement from last year[1]. 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 emis…

> to remove all the carbon Microsoft has ever produced

Does this include all carbon produced by all devices that have run MS OSes? All servers, computers, mobile devices, gaming platforms, etc.?

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#226

Post by read_if_gay_ »

boogies wrote: post #218
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what? Build a giant fence around it? Why the hell would you even care that much about 3,500 fucking birds ? There are FAR better uses for taxpayer money than figuring out how to save a vanishingly small number of them, when we kill them in the billions for dinner anyway. The plant still seems to be a decent step forward, and nothing ever is going to be perfect. If we're going to go down that road, then we're com…

Like nuclear. Why the heck would you care about soda fizz and not about the 2.9 billion wind and solar deaths contributing to the 29% loss of the entire country’s birds? (Or the endangered species being killed, or the human deaths?) https://townhall.com/columnists/katiekieffer/2019/09/23/29-b...

I'm all for nuclear, but I'll also acknowledge that solar is a good step forward, even if it (gasp!) kills birds.

And that 29% claim is very dishonest of you. That's how much the bird population declined overall, since 1950 (!), and says nothing about how many birds are anually killed by solar, at all. (You've updated your post since, to a statement that again basically says nothing.)

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#227

Post by shadowgovt »

boogies wrote: post #194
shadowgovt wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Fukushima and Chernobyl raise serious questions about the safety of nuclear power, unfortunately. > And of course CO₂ danger is exaggerated, most scientists from the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) don’t believe there will be catastrophic effects of global warming (including from more potent greenhouse gasses like methane) in the ne…

Again, as of the last millenium at the latest. Chernobyl was last millenium. Fukushima was a tsunami. There were 0 (zero) deaths from radiation there (and ironically, perhaps there were deaths from irrational fear of it — from the rushed evacuation — perhaps it would be better named FUDushima). And tsunamis don’t happen in the US. The west coast has had catastrophic human intervention in the natural fire cycle, pilin…

> Fukushima was a tsunami

Tsunamis, by themselves, don't contaminate ocean-water with radioactive material to a density high enough to create a 10-km no-fish-zone. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00664/fukushima-fishin...

And while Chernobyl didn't happen in the past 20 years, I think it's naive to consider nuclear power safe when a continent-threatening disaster occurred in the past 40 years. "One massive disaster per generation" makes people justifiably leery. Personally, I think the grand calculus may tilt slightly in nuclear's favor over fossil fuels, but the risk can't be swept under the rug.

> The west coast has had catastrophic human intervention in the natural fire cycle, piling up fuel year after year until it was too big of a hazard for humans to handle

This is a concern, but I think we shouldn't discount that the hottest years recorded in California history of record-keeping have been, with only a couple exceptions, the most recent years (https://www.climatesignals.org/sites/default/files/resources...). The "natural" fire cycle will get further and further from its historical nature as ambient temperatures climb and rainfall diminishes.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#228

Post by thu2111 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #47
namdnay wrote: post #14

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?

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.

Because it would most likely mean forcibly destroying petrol powered cars, which is pretty economy killing as well as vote killing.

Consider: if you don't do that, you're emitting a lot of CO2. You could wait until everyone upgrades to electric cars but it takes several decades for the vehicle fleet to turn over, so even if everyone started buying nothing but electric now, it would take decades to phase out the old vehicles. And they're not all buying electric cars now. So on the kind of timescales that governments are making these "commitments" the only way to stop people driving petrol powered cars, given how useful they are, would be to seize and destroy them.

As for why they're committing to it, well, they still think academic models are accurate for COVID and are acting as if that's true. Climatology is mostly a modelling based discipline. 2+2 = ...

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#229

Post by bobthepanda »

irrational wrote: post #225
ohthehugemanate wrote: post #109

There's a really good explanation of different loopholes in calculating carbon emissions in the Microsoft carbon target announcement from last year[1]. 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 emis…

> to remove all the carbon Microsoft has ever produced Does this include all carbon produced by all devices that have run MS OSes? All servers, computers, mobile devices, gaming platforms, etc.?

How would one even begin to track that?

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#230

Post by Qwertious »

bluGill wrote: post #185
globular-toast wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or allowing work from home.

Work from home is useful, but there are real advantages to face to face conversation.

On the other hand, if people work from home then more people will focus on improving the "work-from-home experience" and making the business more suited for working from home.
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