Google has been doing way too much on climate, but not in a good way. Here’s some of what happened in June 2024:
- Google’s 2024 Sustainability report revealed that Google’s energy use climbed almost 50% in the last 5 years because of their resource-guzzling push for global AI dominance.1
- Google announced they were no longer spending money on buying other peoples’ reduced carbon, (an often shady practice known as carbon offsets; good news!!) but they are pivoting to another unproven tactic (carbon removal credits) that lets them avoid actually transitioning to green energy (BOOO 🍅).2 We need them to commit to a third thing that the world is actually asking for: ending the use of fossil fuels.3
- Just as we were celebrating their supposed demonetization of Heartland Institute, one of the worst spreaders of climate disinfo on YouTube, researchers still found ads (aka revenue sources) on some of Heartland’s deceitful content.4 Google needs to strengthen their enforcement so their actions back up their claims.
We are upping the ante to send a strong message to Google. Better yet, make that thousands of strong messages. Join 19,000 other Google users — the people who make them relevant by writing Google reviews, storing our photographs, sharing our calendars, and so on – to sign a letter straight to Google’s mailbox, letting them know that we need accountablility to us and our future.
Sources:
- “Google Environmental Report 2024,” Google, accessed Jul. 9, 2024; “Google’s emissions climb nearly 50% in five years due to AI energy demand,” The Guardian, Jul. 2, 2024.
- “Google Is No Longer Claiming to Be Carbon Neutral,” Bloomberg, Jul. 8, 2024 ; “Carbon removal isn’t weird anymore. That worries scientists.” E&E News by POLITICO, Dec. 18, 2023
- “Health experts say world needs to end fossil fuel use as new report finds a rise in climate-related mortality,” CNN, Nov. 13, 2023.
- Unpublished research, Union of Concerned Scientists, Jul. 3, 2024.