Tech’s complicity in environmental destruction is not just limited to toxic manufacturing waste and a large carbon footprint. Companies also have a large influence on the climate crisis in the context of policy, the broader economy, and the flow of information. Reports in 2019 revealed that Google has made significant contributions to climate denialist groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which helped convince the Trump administration to withdraw from the Paris Agreement in 2017. Facebook has come under fire for lax action against climate change denial on their platform, where disinformation can easily spread without diligent fact-checking. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have partnered with large oil companies to build machine learning tools that streamline oil production. In fact, the oil industry invested an estimated $1.75 billion in 2018 into machine learning tools, which is projected to grow to $4.01 billion by 2025.
Our purpose in throwing light onto this destructive behavior is not simply to paint a bleak future. Through public pressure and the collective organizing of tech employees, there has been media coverage of some success in holding the tech industry responsible for their environmental destruction. In 2019, after the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice organization led a large walkout in support of the global climate strike, Amazon pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. Similarly, in response to employee pressure, Google pledged to stop funding climate change deniers in 2020. Google also promised to rescind all future contracts with oil companies in response to a Greenpeace report about tech’s oil contracts
The Hidden Cost of Digital Consumptionhttps://parametric.press/issue-02/streaming/