Young environmental activists hold banners as they demonstrate, calling for action on climate change during the "Fridays for Future" school strike, in Istanbul, Turkey, May 24, 2019. VOA
Thousands of school students in Australia and New Zealand took to the streets Friday, initiating an international day of protests against the lack of action against climate change.
Organizers expect that more than a million young people in at least 120 counties will participate in protests.
Demonstrators are demanding that politicians and business leaders take swift measures to slow global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions, which are damaging planet Earth.
Youths hold a banner as they demonstrate calling for action on climate change during the “Fridays for Future” school strike, on Heldenplatz in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2019. VOA
The school protesters in Frankfurt, Germany, marched on the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) to demand it stop financing the fossil fuel industry.
According to environmental scientists, greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels have caused droughts and heatwaves, the melting of glaciers, rising sea levels and devastating floods.
The worldwide protests are inspired by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish activist who began a single-handed climate protest outside the Swedish parliament in August. Since then, her school strike movement “Fridays for Future” has grown exponentially.
Global carbon emissions reached a record high last year, despite warnings from the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October that gas emissions must be curbed over the next 12 years to stabilize the climate. (VOA)
Google gets accused of making "substantial" donations to Washington-based think tanks that defy climate change. Pixabay
Google has been accused of making “substantial” donations to at least a dozen Washington-based think tanks that deny climate change and are actively campaigning against stricter climate legislation.
This is in stark contrast to Google CEO Sundar Pichai who has taken a public pledge to take urgent action against the climate crisis.
According to a report in The Guardian, Google contributed heavily to conservative groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the American Conservative Union that are in support of regulatory efforts that benefit tech companies.
The CEI is a strong proponent of the idea that climate change is a myth. In the past, the group has taken tough stances in opposition to tech regulation and antitrust enforcement.
According to reports, Google is “trying to appease conservatives so it can retain important protections under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act a” a law that protects Google from being responsible for third-parties”.
A company spokesperson said that it might not endorse every policy position of an organization when it makes a contribution.
Google tries to appease conservatives so it can retain important protections under a law that protects Google from being responsible for third-parties: Report. Pixabay
“We’re hardly alone among companies that contribute to organisations while strongly disagreeing with them on climate policy,” a Google spokesperson told The Verge.
Pichai last month announced the biggest corporate purchase of renewable energy in history — made up of a 1,600-megawatt (MW) package of agreements that includes 18 new energy deals.
“These deals will increase our worldwide portfolio of wind and solar agreements by more than 40 per cent, to 5,500 MW equivalent to the capacity of a million solar rooftops,” Pichai said in a statement.
“Once all these projects come online, our carbon-free energy portfolio will produce more electricity than places like Washington D.C. or entire countries like Lithuania or Uruguay use each year,” he added.
The issue is in stark contrast to Google CEO Sundar Pichai who has taken a public pledge to take urgent action against the climate crisis. Pixabay
The announcement came as hundreds of Google employees participated in the “Global Climate Strike” during the United Nation’s climate summit on September 23.
In a blog post, the Google Workers for Action on Climate group highlighted some of the funding that the company was involved with that contradicted its public stance on climate change.
“Google Cloud makes significant revenue licensing infrastructure, machine learning, and engineering talent to fossil fuel companies, promising to help them extract fuel reserves faster,” the group said. (IANS)
