Automating the Climate Crisis: Tech Giants, Oil Titans and the Pursuit of Power
As Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, announced the creation of the Bezos Earth Fund on Instagram in late February, he was found repeating a well-worn, familiar line: “Earth is the one thing we all have in common-let’s protect it, together.” This language is part of a recent trend in the world of business conglomerates, particularly as they face mounting environmental concerns from all sides of the spectrum. Big Tech has undergone a branding campaign intended to align with more ‘progressive’ values, including the pursuit for a better, more sustainable digital future. However, what the climate crisis necessitates and the lifestyle capitalism and consumerism requires of us are inherently in conflict. To what extent is Big Tech really seeking to undergo a sustainable and renewable transition, and how much of it is just surface-level talk?
For an industry to hold such a detrimental impact on the environment, its reach of power must be large-scale. The past decade has shown a rapid spike in information and data valuation unlike anything ever seen. As we learned from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica’s role in designing both Brexit and Trumpism, the collection and manipulation of data is a growing feature of contemporary politics. Big Tech appears to conquer our countries, challenge our rights, and shape our very world as we know it; Google runs two-thirds of all American online searches, Amazon is one of the top stops for everything consumerism, and Facebook holds a whopping 1.5 billion active users worldwide. More importantly, this reach of power cannot be separated from the environmental ripples that follow Big Tech.
Of course, tech titans are not immune to global environmental concerns, particularly amongst the younger generations. The World Economic Forum is a shining case for this, a gathering this past January where tech leaders came to show their cheery enthusiasm for the green revolution. Big promises were made at the forum, Microsoft Word even pledging to remove all emissions ever produced by the company in addition to going carbon negative. Despite all this talk, few companies have clarified how they intend to transition away from a fossil-fuel based economy, nor have any targets and timetables been set for reducing these greenhouse gas emissions. As Alison Martin, head of several Zurich Insurance divisions, frankly put it, “It’s an increase in rhetoric, absolutely. Will we see a walking of the talking? The jury is out.”
How exactly does the tech industry automate the wheels of today’s climate crisis?
The Shift Project, a Paris-based think tank focused on energy transition, recently conducted a report on the mass consumption of disposable digital equipment and electricity eating devices. It concluded that the total share of digital technologies in global greenhouse gas emissions has increased from 2.5% to 3.7% since 2013. Amazon’s renewable commitment claims only cover their own operations and electricity use, leaving out its supply chain: which consists of more than 75% of its overall carbon footprint. More directly, Amazon continues to supply machine learning and AI technologies to oil giants like BP and Shell. Yet Amazon is not the only company saying one thing and doing another: Microsoft’s contract with Exxon, a partnership based around cloud computing and fracking, helped drill around 50,000 barrels a day in Texas’ Permian Basin. Even more ironically, Microsoft last year sponsored an oil and gas conference the same week it went public with its environmental commitments. At this rate, the climate commitments offered by Big Tech appear nothing more than words to conceal the greased wheels of a money-making machine.
So, the question now remains: How can we move forward from this profit-hungry motif characterising big tech and other industries worldwide? The pace at which climate change is moving requires immediate and effective action from both individuals and multinational corporations. Silicon Valley to this day remains wary of green tech, even though research shows that the field is an untapped multi trillion-dollar doorway to profitable solutions, including but not limited to urban mobility, battery storage, food production ecosystem, fashion sustainability and more. Moreso, the extreme weather produced by climate change, from California wildfires to the severe flooding in Australia, continues to prove financially consequential to companies and investors worldwide.
Ultimately, transparency is the missing factor in the business tech community, a community which has long covered indirect dealings with the fossil fuel industry with a ‘progressive and sustainable’ PR branding. This pattern will continue to occur as long as those in power aren’t held accountable. In January, two Amazon employees did just that. After publicly criticising the company’s environmental policies and their sponsorship of oil and gas businesses, they were threatened with termination. But only after this bad press did Bezos announce the previously mentioned Bezos Earth Fund and its 10 billion dollar grant to combat climate change. Perhaps at the end of the day, it is our voices loud and strong that become our most valuable weapon in speaking truth to corruption. And no money or power can take that away from us.
