Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 335 posts

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#21

Post by Cro_on »

jurgenaut23 wrote: post #3

How about the carbon footprint of their users while using their services?

How about the carbon footprint of [insert arbitrary company]'s users while using their services?

It is totally nonsense and doesn't help at all.

Forgiving my own displeasure at google-everything, I think I can at least appreciate that they might not be all evil all the time – perhaps they could even influence people in a positive way?

Also excuse the related tangent and cherry picking, I am not condoning most of China's behaviour, but being big and bad doesn't necessarily mean that they cannot produce positive effects. [0]

[0]https://www.wsj.com/ad/article/chinaenergy-powerhouse

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#22

Post by hammock »

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.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#23

Post by Cro_on »

the_gastropod wrote: post #19

I have mixed feelings about this. It’s wonderful that Google is making progress on their emissions. But I wonder if their business model is at all compatible with a 0 carbon world. Their entire raison d’être is to convince people to buy things they don’t need. They even have a very targeted flight purchasing service. This type of behavior we’ve grown accustomed to—of unbridled consumerism and excess—seems like it’s g…

I wouldn't agree that that is their raison d’être – their, or their competitors, existence is by now as fundamental as public infrastructure.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#24

Post by hedgedoops2 »

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?

I guess the price is low because no-one is buying offsets. You'd expect the cheapest ways to offset emissions to be sold first.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#25

Post by ForHackernews »

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?

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 cleaner-burning cooking gases. Prices are as low as 10-15 USD per tonne of CO2.

If we ever make a serious attempt to decarbonize the entire economy, we will run out of cheap/easy options and be forced to make harder, more expensive tradeoffs.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#26

Post by School-Cotton »

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.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#27

Post by jsmith99 »

coldpie wrote: post #18
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?

Pricing carbon emissions is tricky, obviously. A recent analysis put the cost of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 at between $34 and $124/tn[1], depending on when you start the pricing. I was surprised how low these prices are. [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/new-carbon-price-foc...

Assuming only a small proportion of polluters are offsetting I would expect to pay towards the bottom end of the range. The more expensive offsets need only be considered once we approach net zero.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#28

Post by taf2 »

roenxi wrote: post #15

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 tra…

Not sure it’s correct way to view the problem but in my mind if google could

1. Ensure all employees traveling to work had zero emissions

2. The production of energy to power their offices and servers produced zero emissions

3. The sourcing of materials to build and maintain the energy production produced zero emissions

4. The food required to feed the people working for them produced zero emissions

I think 3 and 4 are going to be the hardest for the world to figure out

1 and 2 we have good solutions either solar/ hydro or mass transit or electric cars. But the supporting infrastructure that’s harder maybe?

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#29

Post by jsmith99 »

jurgenaut23 wrote: post #3

How about the carbon footprint of their users while using their services?

That would be a fair argument against, say, an oil company claiming its operations (ie distribution) are carbon neutral while ignoring the use to which people put its products. But most tech firms' products encourage users to stay at home on the couch and produce less carbon, if anything. Probably the only Google product that encourages users to produce CO2 is Maps.

Re: Google says its carbon footprint is now zero

#30

Post by angel_j »

This is a wealth privilege, setting an example others cannot follow unless the whole economy is changed. It does nothing to address the externalization of pollution as a norm of the free market, for which all are complicit. It's just like sending plastic to a poor country and giving them a little cash to make it their problem.
Post reply on HN