https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/google-facebook-and-microsoft-sponsored-a-conference-that-promoted-climate-change-denial/
[While we could be shifting direction towards a world where we are
combating climate change, major corporations which shape public opinion
daily are continuing to move the conversation towards more denial. The
work to move evidence into the decision-making process is clearly not
finished.]
Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have publicly acknowledged the dangers
of global warming, but last week they all sponsored a conference that
promoted climate change denial to young libertarians.
All three tech companies were sponsors of LibertyCon, the annual
convention of the libertarian group Students for Liberty, which took
place in Washington, DC. Google was a platinum sponsor, ponying up
$25,000, and Facebook and Microsoft each contributed $10,000 as gold
sponsors. The donations put the tech companies in the top tier of the
event’s backers. But the donations also put the firms in company with
some of the event’s other sponsors, which included three groups known
for their work attacking climate change science and trying to undermine
efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Among the most notable was the CO2 Coalition, a group founded in 2015 to
spread the “good news” about a greenhouse gas whose increase in the
atmosphere is linked to potentially catastrophic climate change. The
coalition is funded by conservative foundations that have backed other
climate change denial efforts. These include the Mercer Family
Foundation, which in recent years has donated hundreds of thousands of
dollars to right-wing think tanks engaged in climate change denialism,
and the Charles Koch Institute, the charitable arm of one of the
brothers behind Koch Industries, the oil and gas behemoth.
In the LibertyCon exhibit hall, the CO2 Coalition handed out brochures
that said its goal is to “explain how our lives and our planet Earth
will be improved by additional atmospheric carbon dioxide.” One brochure
claimed that “more carbon dioxide will help everyone, including future
generations of our families” and that the “recent increase in CO2 levels
has had a measurable, positive effect on plant life,” apparently because
the greenhouse gas will make plants grow faster.
In a Saturday presentation, Caleb Rossiter, a retired statistics
professor and a member of the coalition, gave a presentation titled
“Let’s Talk About Not Talking: Should There Be ‘No Debate’ that
Industrial Carbon Dioxide is Causing Climate Catastrophe?” In his
presentation, Rossiter told the assembled students that the impact of
climate change on weather patterns has been vastly exaggerated. “There
has been no increase in storms, in intensity or frequency,” he said.
“The data don’t show a worrisome trend.”
He insisted that when he hears the news that carbon dioxide levels in
the atmosphere are rising, “I’m cheering!” That’s because, he said,
carbon dioxide “is a fertilizer” that has made Africa greener and
increased food production there, reducing human misery.
Rossiter also claimed that carbon dioxide emissions correlate with
wealth and that the greenhouse gas “improves life expectancy” because
poor countries that start burning fossil fuels have a more consistent
power supply and can then clean up their water. “I’m happy when carbon
dioxide is up, because it means poverty is down,” he declared.
“I come not to bury your carbon but to praise it,” he concluded.
Rossiter’s presentation puts him on the far fringes of the climate
denial world. Not even Exxon is trying to make such arguments anymore.
And it’s a long way from what Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have said
about the dangers of carbon dioxide; all three companies have committed
to reducing their own carbon footprints. Microsoft has pledged to cut
carbon emissions by 75 percent by 2030. Google claims to be committed to
a “zero carbon” future and is aggressively pursuing renewable energy
sources for its operations to reduce its carbon footprint and help
combat climate change. And Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg criticized
President Donald Trump after he announced that the United States would
withdraw from the Paris climate accord, writing, “Stopping climate
change is something we can only do as a global community, and we have to
act together before it’s too late.”
The presence of the tech sponsors at a libertarian conference is not
itself unusual, as governments around the globe move to try to regulate
social media and online privacy. Tech companies see libertarians as
natural allies in the fight against regulation. Indeed, Google sponsored
two different sessions at the conference, one on why “permissionless
innovation” needs to be defended and another on whether the government
will “continue to let the Internet be awesome.” But the companies’
underwriting of a conference with a climate denier on the schedule shows
the hazards of trying to advance a policy agenda through interest groups
without also supporting their fringe elements.
The CO2 Coalition wasn’t the only group sponsoring LibertyCon that is
known for its work undermining efforts to combat climate change. Along
with Facebook and Microsoft, the Heartland Institute was also a gold
sponsor of the event. Heartland is a longtime player in industry-funded
efforts to undermine climate science and fend off efforts to reduce
carbon emissions. The conservative Heritage Foundation, which pushed the
Trump administration to withdraw from the Paris climate accords and has
long featured experts who argue that global warming is a myth, was also
a sponsor.
A Facebook spokesman responded to questions about its sponsorship of
LibertyCon by sending a link to its political engagement page, which
says, “Sometimes we support events that highlight Internet and social
media issues” and features a long list of third-party groups it has
worked with in the past. He noted that LibertyCon met its criteria for
support and cited the number of sessions unrelated to climate change.
A spokesperson from Google defended the company’s LibertyCon
sponsorship, saying, “Every year, we sponsor organizations from across
the political spectrum to promote strong technology laws. As we make
clear in our public policy transparency report, Google’s sponsorship or
collaboration with a third party organization doesn’t mean that we
endorse the organization’s entire agenda or agree with other speakers or
sponsors.”
On Wednesday, Microsoft said in a statement, “Our commitment to
sustainability is not altered or affected by our membership or
sponsorship of an organization. We work with many groups on technology
policy issues and do not expect or anticipate that any organization’s
agenda will align to ours in all policy areas.”