Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumYay, Technology! New Google Car Map App Could Cut 1/40,000th Of Annual Carbon Output - We're Saved!
Google Maps is to offer drivers the lowest carbon route for their chosen journey as part of the search companys new environmentally friendly policies.
Motorists will be able to select the route with the lowest carbon emissions once factors such as traffic and road inclines are taken into account. The new product launches in the US on Wednesday and in Europe next year. Where the comparable journey times are broadly the same, Google Maps will default to the lowest carbon option.
Googles chief executive, Sundar Pichai, said the initiative could save 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, or the equivalent of taking 200,000 cars off the road.
Travelling by car is one of the more carbon-intensive choices people make on a daily basis. Starting [Wednesday] in the US, and in Europe in 2022, Google Maps will let you choose the route with the lowest carbon emissions if it isnt already the fastest one, said Pichai. Google added that it will make it easier for online car shoppers to see hybrid and electric vehicle options, and to compare them against exclusively fossil fuel-powered models.
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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/06/google-maps-to-show-the-lowest-carbon-route-for-car-journeys
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)1 Million Tonnes is a whole lot better than no savings at al.
Maybe it isn't much in the scheme of things or in your view, but it is something. l
hatrack
(59,584 posts).
jimfields33
(15,787 posts)Electric cars wont be ready for 15 years at least for mainstream. Why not find some other things we can do. Not everything has to be a downer.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)The Op hasn't heard of that concept and apparently at least this needs to be a downer.
hatrack
(59,584 posts)Meanwhile, Google sits on the board of the Business Roundtable, one of the most powerful business lobbies in the country. The Business Roundtable is squarely opposed to the Biden infrastructure/BBB bill. Why? Because they'd have to actually pay taxes.
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The report highlights the discordance between companies public-facing climate commitments and the actions of their lobbying groups. Amazon, for example, in 2019 unveiled plans to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions 10 years before the Paris Agreement deadline of 2050, and later renamed a Seattle hockey arena after its ostentatious climate pledge. But its CEO, Andy Jassy, sits on the Business Roundtable, a group that has called the budget bills tax provisions troubling and has mounted what it calls a significant, multifaceted campaign to oppose them. Apple, Google, and Microsoft also have CEOs on the Roundtable.
Much opposition targets the packages tax policy, including proposals to increase the corporate tax rate to 26 percent from its current 21 percent, and to increase the capital gains tax rate from 20 percent to 25 percent. According to the Chamber of Commerce, such tax increases which Democrats want to use to fund the expansion of the social safety net and allow for a substantial rise in climate-related spending, including a program to incentivize utilities to transition to clean energy sources would halt Americas fragile economic recovery. The Business Roundtable agreed, adding that it would dramatically increase inflation.
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Joshua Bolten, CEO of the Business Roundtable, told Grist that all of the groups members support climate action but that there was no policy reason to link strong action to address climate change with unrelated, harmful tax policy, which he said would make climate investments more difficult. Boltens statement did not address the fossil fuel industrys alleged influence over the organizations policy positions.
This isnt the first time that leading companies have been criticized for the chasm between their actions and their public-facing climate pledges. In January, a report from the nonprofit InfluenceMap found that the so-called Big Five tech companies Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft had spent only 4 percent of their 2020 lobbying dollars on climate-related policy at the federal level, despite significant rhetorical commitments to sustainability. The tech companies advocacy for climate policy has actually dropped off since January, according to a September update from InfluenceMap, meaning that some of the worlds most powerful companies are doing even less to realize the climate-safe future they have so heavily advertised with their pledges to go carbon neutral and carbon negative.
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Neither Apple nor Google responded to Grists request for comment. Microsoft referred to its blog post on the spending package, and an Amazon spokesperson said the company supported the packages investments to lower emissions in key sectors like energy and transportation, and that it would be willing to pay a higher corporate tax rate.
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https://grist.org/accountability/corporations-talk-green-but-helping-derail-major-climate-bill/
But in the mean time, here's an app. Here's some green-sounding press releases. Here's a picture of our employees planting trees. Here you go! We really care, see?
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)hatrack
(59,584 posts).