Google says its carbon footprint is now zero • Hacker News Board

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#321

Post by ip26 » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 10:26 PM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #207

bawolff wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with all those caveats, its still an impressive milestone and a step in the right direction.

I'm partially curious and partially skeptical. Is this "a step in the right direction" in the same way as recycling? (i.e. people thinking 100% of recyclables actually get recycled vs the reality being a lot of it end up in landfills or worse, and the parallel overproduction of plastics turned into a worldwide ecological disaster)

I figure it's more money ("demand") going towards carbon offsets, which should mean increasing development in offsetting ("supply"). Whether that's R&D on carbon capture, greater economic viability for carbon free energy, or greater incentives for halting deforestation, it should all be a net good in a march towards drawing down carbon emissions.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Post by ip26 » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 10:31 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #189

soperj wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but once you reach "zero" what's the incentive to improve now?

Offsets are better than nothing, but they're not sustainable. Low-hanging fruit will be used up at some point, and actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere is really expensive (most optimistic figure I've seen anywhere estimates $50/ton for the mid-to-long term). So the incentive is to push for actually zero emissions instead of net zero. And as sibling comment mentions, climate change is bad for business too, so th…

Is $50/ton really so expensive? At that price you could sequester average household emissions for $375/yr.

Can't help but note, flood or wildfire insurance (for people in risk areas) has climbed in cost a lot more than $375/yr.

$375/household/yr sounds downright cheap to me, if it gets us out of this hurricane/wildfire/drought/flood cycle.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 10:33 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #291

dragonwriter wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capitalism does not mean we can’t have legislation to protect humanity Mostly, it does. > think of the clean air act and a host of others (e.g. OSHA) Those laws are at odds with capitalism, because they limit the control of private capital owners over the application of that capital in favor of social direction or limitation by the State on others’ interest. Now, you can support that as necessary for the good of so…

This is correct and shouldn't be downvoted. You can like capitalism while acknowledging its faults.

The post is presuming that limitations can not be placed on capitalism. As it is verbally used, capitalism is compatible with regulation. For example, slavery and child prostitution are illegal in essentially every capitalist economy.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Post by perl4ever » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #318

wolco wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they didn't receive those high salaries they wouldn't be able to take those personal trips. The more employees the higher the multiplier. So what are we exactly offsetting.

But it makes no sense to attribute the personal decision of the employee into the carbon footprint. Because paying a high salary does not require that the person take airplane vacations. Some don't. And for those that do, they would have the option to pay to reverse or offset those emissions. Should the company also reduce their carbon footprint calculations since paying employees more will make then more likely to o…

On average though, a reasonable very rough assumption is 0.5 kg CO2 / dollar (from what I read). You could make a complex model, but simply saying money = consumption = CO2 is a straightforward starting point.

A given employee might or might not fly or whatever. But statistically, the average is going to be pretty predictable, and it's not intellectually honest to pretend that because one doesn't know individual behavior, the average could be anything.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Post by philipkglass » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 10:46 PM UTC

SparkyMcUnicorn wrote: post #320

xdavidliu wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agriculture (even without fossil fuels) has a far greater impact on the environment than all fossil fuel use combined Can I get a source for that claim? A quick Google gives me the following: > Globally, fossil fuel-based energy is responsible for about 60% of human greenhouse gas emissions, with deforestation at about 18%, and animal agriculture between 14% and 18% (estimates from the World Resources Institute, UN…

Here's a full infographic with sources [0]. I did watch this documentary, and while I don't agree with some of the conclusions or outlook, it does serve up some facts I wouldn't have looked into had I not seen it. [0] https://www.cowspiracy.com/infographic

Cowspiracy's numbers on global warming are bull shit. That infographic attributes 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions to animal agriculture.

The US EPA says that 24% of global emissions are attributable to all agriculture and land use changes as of 2010:

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...

The IPCC's more recent accounting says 23% of global emissions are attributable to all agriculture and land use changes:

https://www.ipcc.ch/2019/08/08/land-is-a-critical-resource_s...

Here's a detailed critical review of Cowspiracy from the Union of Concerned Scientists:

https://blog.ucsusa.org/doug-boucher/cowspiracy-movie-review

According to Cowspiracy, the major source of global warming pollution isn’t fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, as the world’s scientists are telling us. No, it’s animal agriculture—not just eating cows, but all other kinds of meat, and eggs and milk and fish too. So the principal solution to global warming isn’t renewable energy. It’s for everyone to become a vegan.

Central to Cowspiracy’s conspiracy theory is the supposed “fact” that a 2009 study found that 51% of all greenhouse gases are produced by animal agriculture.

A good deal of the movie is taken up with interviews with people from environmental organizations, such as the Rainforest Action Network, Oceana, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, who don’t seem to accept this “fact,” and therefore must be part of the conspiracy to cover it up. Greenpeace politely declined, twice, to be interviewed, proving that they’re part of the cowspiracy too. ...

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Post by adrianmonk » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #26

hammock wrote: post #22

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.

> not sure how we'll get there, but we will. This reminds me of Bezos’s announcement that Amazon would be making deliveries by drone by 2018.

What I love about that announcement is that it came right during Christmas shopping season. Hey everybody, we have nothing concrete to announce, but while we have your attention, remember that Prime is a great way to buy holiday gifts for people!

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Post by parasubvert » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 12:29 AM UTC

growlist wrote: post #261

parasubvert wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of reasons? A) We’ve globally lowered poverty to its lowest levels in history through trade. Pretty much every government And populace on earth would be against this policy except the absolute richest blocs (eg. The EU, elements of the USA). B) Globalism has already been pretty curtailed by populism the past 20 years. But this includes the good parts of globalism, like coordinated carbon reductions. C) Carbon re…

> mass migrations that will be required later this century due to carbon emissions. ...only if we choose not to do something about controlling fertility. But in the end I strongly suspect we'll all be travelling about a lot less. Which is fine with me. Globalism is all about destroying diversity and culture, which is an awful future.

I’m not so sure that’s what globalism is about?

I mean, entertainment and media is a small part of the global economy dollar-wise even if it has lots of influence, local content laws as protectionism don’t harm a lot. the Japanese (Among others, say China or India) have done a pretty good job of adopting other cultures and various products without losing their uniqueness.

Travel I think is a short term (2-3 year) pause.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Post by shadowgovt » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

boogies wrote: post #267

shadowgovt wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 disa…

> Tsunamis, by themselves, don't contaminate ocean-water with radioactive material to a density high enough to create a 10-km no-fish-zone OK, fair enough, I think it may be a good idea not to build nuclear reactors in potential direct paths of tsunamis, or at least not on the seashore the fourth most powerful earthquake in the recorded history of the world , causing the only nuclear “disaster” to share the same maxi…

Forest fires don't generally move fast enough to cause mass death. The property damage in the West coast, however, is extraordinary.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Post by Arnt » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 11:46 AM UTC

polote wrote: post #107

robjan wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They bought carbon offsets which are more focused on preventing / reducing carbon from being generated. It's basically saying "if I stop x amount of carbon from being emitted somewhere in the world, it's as good as -ve carbon on the balance sheet".

so basically company A says it built one solar panel for company B to use. Company A says it reduced its carbon emission and company B says it reduced also his. So we have reduced emission by a factor of 2 solar panels by using only one? seems smart!

No, A says it does, and you claim B says, without presenting evidence.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

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Post by dalbasal » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 12:10 PM UTC

uncoder0 wrote: post #232

dalbasal wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in europe, both have happened. A meaningful portion of the gains have been from deindustrialization of one kind or another. This isn't an indictment of all carbon reduction. Most meaningful policies will have reshuffling. There are no perfect moves. That said, it's important to try and get into the nuance, be skeptical. In this case, the guts are in the "what does carbon offset really mean?" Any carbon accou…

I've always been bewildered by the west's push to 'de-industrialize' it seems to be a terrible strategy to combat climate change and serves only to enrich corporations while weakening a country's geo-political position. Nations need to be able to produce things or they become dependent on other actors who have a track record of acting in bad faith, see China and Covid 19 PPE shortage as one example.

At least in the context I was speaking to, I don't think it was a "push." Deindustrialization (esp heavy industry) had been happening for a while. Environmental issues were one of the pressures, though that precedes the climate change agenda.

It just happens to be the case that when you look back at carbon reductions, deindustrialization is one of the key contributors. Clean energy too. A lot of europe already had a lot of clean energy though.