Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

The Polluters

Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers

Firm’s public calls for climate action contrast with backing for conservative thinktanks
• The obscure law that explains why Google backs climate deniers

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
@skirchy Email
Fri 11 Oct 2019 07.00 BST
Last modified on Fri 11 Oct 2019 11.45 BST

Google has made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington despite its insistence that it supports political action on the climate crisis.

Among hundreds of groups the company has listed on its website as beneficiaries of its political giving are more than a dozen organisations that have campaigned against climate legislation, questioned the need for action, or actively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections.

The list includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative policy group that was instrumental in convincing the Trump administration to abandon the Paris agreement and has criticised the White House for not dismantling more environmental rules.

Google said it was disappointed by the US decision to abandon the global climate deal, but has continued to support CEI.

Google is also listed as a sponsor for an upcoming annual meeting of the State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella organisation that supports conservative groups including the Heartland Institute, a radical anti-science group that has chided the teenage activist Greta Thunberg for “climate delusion hysterics”.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/11/google-contributions-climate-change-deniers

[Bradshaw3]

1. The Guardian is doing excellent reporting on climate and big business

I urge people to check out their series called The Polluters:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/the-polluters

[global1]

2. What's Google's Angle On This - What Is Their Stake In This Game?.....

Why would Google want to deny Climate Change?

[Eugene]

5. From the other article linked at the OP...

The obscure law that explains why Google backs climate deniers

-snip-

For Google, providing financial backing to groups such as CEI and the Cato Institute – staunch free marketeers – has nothing to do with climate science, and everything to do with its effort to curry favour with conservatives on its most pressing issue in Washington: protecting an obscure section of the US law that is worth billions of dollars to the company.

The law – known as section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – was established in the 1990s, at a time when the internet was in its infancy, and helped to give rise to internet giants, from Google to Facebook, by offering legal immunity to the companies for third party comments, in effect treating them as distributors of content and not publishers.

Section 230, in effect, allowed Google and Facebook to be shielded from the kinds of libel laws that can ensnare other companies, such as newspapers.

-snip-

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/11/obscure-law-google-climate-deniers-section-230

[NeoGreen]

3. I've been using Ecosia as my google-replacement home page...

...for the last 6 months.

https://www.ecosia.org/
Make Ecosia your new search engine and plant trees with your searches - for free!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosia

Ecosia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ecosia is an Internet search engine based in Berlin, Germany that donates 80% or more of its profits to nonprofit organizations that focus on Reforestation. Ecosia considers itself a social business, is CO2-negative, claims to support full financial transparency, protect the privacy of its users; and is certified by B-Lab as a benefit corporation.

The website maintains a running total of the number of trees planted. According to their website, as of 7 October 2019, the search engine had been responsible for the planting of more than 70 million trees.

[klook]

4. Thanks.

I use DuckDuckGo, but will check out Ecosia.